Grazing

[Emelio Lizardo]

Presently pastures consume a lot of animal feed to produce anything.

But why not have pastures with a radius where grass can be comsummed by the animals?

[Erik Asmussen]

Hmm - interesting! Hadn't thought of a functional use for grass. But that could be neat. Will note it down!

[JayCeeEll]

You could even consider different pasture sizes depending on product, chicken normal size, sheep 4X and beef 12X or even 16X

[Emelio Lizardo]

I'd suggest just the standard size and your output regulated by how many tiles have grass.

Additionally it would be possible to allow grain or other crops to be in that same space for grazing. With differing effects.

The main difference between the two practices would be "factory" farming is going to use less space for the same outputs but of course at the cost of feed.

[!?!]

Wouldn't that just flat out eliminate a step in the production?
I thought the goal was more belts, not less.

[FarmerDaveToo]

Hey neat! But maybe it’s a hay farm that collects a wild crop of grass (like how a forester gets logs) and makes hay bales. Hay bales > pasture. But need something like 10x hay bale to get same value as bag of animal feed since you skip that grain mill step like chris is saying. (Akin to fuel value of logs vs coal) And its only for cows since chickens don’t eat hay. Alternatively, require a fermentation step to make haylage then give to the pasture. (its like sauerkraut for cows, but made with grass) Hay bales might also have alternative uses, like be a building unit requirement as a component in thatch roofs. Like you need 20 planks, 5 stone bricks and 15 hay bales to build a structure. Hay!

[Emelio Lizardo]

Everything is a trade off. The free range pasture uses grass for feed but it can't be scaled up like the factory farm, you're limited to how many squares of grass (or other crops) you have. It also takes up space.

It makes the pasture more akin to the farm.

Chickens normally eat insects, one of the reasons they were domesticated in the first place. In this case the grass squares represent the range they have to forage in.

There's no season in the game so no necessity to produce hay.

I think the best thing is to keep it really, really, simple.

[Drust]

Couldn't it be an alternate radius for the current farms that appears when a "Grow Hay" box is checked? Wider but slower producing... something like that?

[Erik Asmussen]

Good ideas, taking notes!

[laurifen]

Because I would like to be able to build farmland and pastures on hills, this grass idea makes a lot of sense. Especially if the pasture could use grass as a resource within a radius, much like a forester uses trees.

I'm not sure whether it's worth the complexity of having two types of pasture (the existing type, plus a free-range type), but if that did happen I think instead of being a 3x3 plopped structure (including the fence), this sort of pasture could consist of a smaller shed (1x1 or 1x2 maybe) and make use of the grassy area around it -- possibly with a dynamically-generated fence as more workers are assigned/buildings encroach on the farmland! The smaller footprint means it could be plopped on relatively uneven terrain and still use grass growing on nearby sloped tiles.

[Erik Asmussen]

I'm hoping to add some kind of dirt block that lets you farm on hills - like terraced farming.

That could work in concert with regular farm tiles or automatic pasture grass.

[Emelio Lizardo]

Keep it simple. Range vs Factory farming.

The primary difference is that free range doesn't scale. All you can do is add (or remove) grass. I wouldn't change anything about how grass is done. Just have the normal farm radius where grass is effective for the pasture.

The present 'pasture' is really a farm factory. densely packed animals being engorged with grain. it's only limited by how much feed you can cram in.

designate one type a pasture and the other a feedlot.

[Drust]

Originally posted by Emelio Lizardo:

Chickens normally eat insects, one of the reasons they were domesticated in the first place. In this case the grass squares represent the range they have to forage in.

If you want chickens to consistently produce eggs of any sort of quality you have to do more than just let them forage, just saying.




Ultimately, none of these ideas matter if in the end the extra options don't enhance the gameplay. As always take it all with a "grain" of salt. This is "factory" town after all, y'know?